A Cathedral Singer

by James Lane Allen

If he took the more convenient route, it would lead him into one of the city's main cross streets, beset with dangers. She would be able to sit more at peace through those hours of posing if she could know that he had gone across the cathedral grounds and then across the park as along a country road bordered with young grass and shrubs in bloom and forest trees in early leaf. She wished to keep all day before her eyes the picture of him as straying that April morning along such a country road—sometimes the road of faint far girlhood memories to her.

Then with a great incomprehensible look she had vanished from him. But before the doors closed, he, peering past her, had caught sight of the walls inside thickly hung with portraits of men and women in rich colors and in golden frames. Into this splendid world his mother had vanished, herself to be painted.

Now as he began ravenously to eat his supper he wished to hear all about it. She told him. Part of her experience she kept back, a true part; the other, no less true, she described. With deft fingers she went over the somberly woven web of the hours, and plucking here a bright thread and there a bright thread, rewove these into a smaller picture, on which fell the day's far-separated sunbeams; the rays were condensed now and made a solid brightness.

This is how she painted for him a bright picture out of things not many of which were bright. The teacher of the portrait class, to begin, had been very considerate. He had arranged that she should leave her things with the janitor's wife down-stairs, and not go up-stairs and take them off behind some screens in a corner of the room where the class was assembled. That would have been dreadful, to have to go behind the screens to take off her hat and gloves. Then instead of sending word for her to come up, he himself had come down. As he led the way past the confusing halls and studios, he had looked back over his shoulder just a little, to let her know that not for a moment did he lose thought of her. To have walked in front of her, looking straight ahead, might have meant that he esteemed her a person of no consequence. A master so walks before a servant, a superior before an inferior. Out of respect for her, he had even lessened the natural noisiness of his feet on the bare floor. If you put your feet down hard in the house, it means that you are thinking of yourself and not of other people. He had mounted the stairs slowly lest she get out of breath as she climbed. When he preceded her into the presence of the class, he had turned as though he introduced to them his own mother. In everything he did he was really a man; that is, a gentleman. For being a gentleman is being really a man; if you are really a man, you are a gentleman.

As for the members of the class, they had been beautiful in their treatment of her. Not a word had been exchanged with them, but she could feel their beautiful thoughts. Sometimes when she glanced at them, while they worked, such beautiful expressions rested on their faces. Unconsciously their natures had opened like young flowers, and as at the hearts of young flowers there is for each a clear drop of honey, so in each of their minds there must have been one same thought, the remembrance of their mothers. Altogether it was as though they were assembled there in honor of her, not to make use of her.

As to posing itself, one had not a thing to do but sit perfectly still! One got such a good rest from being too much on one's feet! And they had placed for her such a splendid carved-oak chair! When she took her seat, all at once she had felt as if at home again. There were immense windows; she had had all the fresh air she wished, and she did enjoy fresh air! The whole roof was a window, and she could look out at the sky: sometimes the loveliest clouds drifted over, and sometimes the dearest little bird flew past, no doubt on its way to the park. Last, but not least, she had not been crowded. In New York it was almost impossible to secure a good seat in a public place without being nudged or bumped or crowded. But that had actually happened to her. She had had a delightful chair in a public place, with plenty of room in every direction. How fortunate at last to remember that she might pose! It would fit in perfectly at times when she did not have to go out for needlework or for the other demands. Dollars would now soon begin to be brought in like their bits of coal, by the scuttleful! And then the piano! And then the teacher and the lessons! And then, and then—

Her happy story ended. She had watched the play of lights on his face as sometimes he, though hungry, with fork in the air paused to listen and to question. Now as she finished and looked across the table at the picture of him under the lamplight, she was rewarded, she was content; while he ate his plain food, out of her misfortunes she had beautifully nourished his mind. He did not know this; but she knew it, knew by his look and by his only comment:

"You had a perfectly splendid time, didn't you?"

She laughed to herself.

"Now, then," she said, coming to what had all along been most in her consciousness—"now, then, tell me about your day. Begin at the moment you left me."